Hearts and flowers are two of my favorite scrappy elements to work with in my layout designs but they are also two of my faves when creating cards. I’m going to share how I created a couple of hybrid Valentine’s Day cards. I created an 8.5 x 11″ photoshop document. I opened up Kaleidoscope Heart Collages & Papers by Rebecca McMeen and placed a few of the collages on my document. Then I opened up Watercolor Heart Brushes and placed a few png files (the brush file is there too if you prefer to use brushes) on my document. I brushed some color overtop of the hearts and flowers. Now I was ready to print my sheet so I could then cut the pieces out.
My supplies (aside from the printed materials) were heavy weight cardstock, magenta ink, buttons, flowers, yarn and lace. I used a card scorer, pop-dots, glue-dots, liquid glue, large and small scissors and a hole puncher. The first thing I did was cut and score a fold into my card (cut 8.5 x 11″ paper in half to make 2 cards, 4.25 x 5.5). I cut the collages to fit onto my card front. I didn’t measure anything, just eye-balled it. I inked along the edges of the pieces for definition with the magenta ink. I cut out the hearts and used pop-dots to adhere to the card fronts (to give them dimension). I wrapped lace around one piece and hole punched one of the hearts to thread the lace through and tied in knot. I adhered the lace with glue dots. I gathered a bit of messy yarn to adhere under one of the hearts. I finished off the cards with a button on one heart and a flower with a button on another heart.
I had a few pieces left over from my printed sheet which I will put into a box to keep for another day, for another card or tag. I always fill up an 8.5 x 11″ cardstock for printing so I can stockpile the extra pieces to use when I am limited on time (which happens a lot) as I tend to procrastinate and then rush around at the last minute to get something done.
Two things I like to consider when making hybrid cards is the amount of ink used as my printer tends to go through ink very quickly and the time needed to create them. These cards were a winner because they exceeded my expectations on both counts. I was able to put these together very quickly, there was no measuring involved (I just eye-balled the dimensions), only required a bit of cutting and trimming, and didn’t use up a lot of ink.
I hope I’ve inspired you to create a Valentine’s Day card this year!
Christa (cfile) says
Rae, what beautiful hybrid cards! I love the buttons lace and string added.. what fun! The watercolor paint brush work really pops.. great cards!